


Grey, Gold Women

by shakespearespaz



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Gen, Insanity, someone take certain literary works away from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 22:25:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1202794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespearespaz/pseuds/shakespearespaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An odd piece taking Rachel's sanity and messing with it in a non-canon way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grey, Gold Women

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rather odd piece and it probably won’t make sense because I engineered it to not make complete sense (although the execution was probably poor). There were some images that I wanted to work into a Rachel story and some other factors which I’ll talk about later which probably influenced it to come out like this….

She escaped. 

It poured through the night and morning, finally letting up as dawn repainted the overgrown woods with a welcome patchwork of shadows and sunlight. They still hadn’t found her, would never find her.

The morning sun felt gentle and kind against her soaked shirt, a blanket of serenity as the cleansing raindrops were dried. She imagined them evaporating, peeled softly away, slowly at first with some coaxing and then more eagerly. She had the urge to strip and swim, but it was too much work and too cruel to disturb gentle ripples blown across the grey lake.

Had she needed to be caged for her own protection? Each sharp breath brought a life back to her that she thought she had lost forever. She let the thoughts of those she left behind drift away, carelessly across the pond like a small leaf. There was no point if she couldn’t let herself be happy even now.

They couldn’t catch her and box her and place miles of schematics in front of her again, she would close her eyes and come back here. The woman she had freed wouldn’t let them, she had an ally, or almost, the grey hair still peeked through the golden reeds. Or maybe the gold hair peeked through the grey mud; it did not matter. She was here and she was her.

She had caught her, freed her, and now the faint buzz of early summer soothed her, humming her to sleep. Her bubble was shattered, as metaphors collided in her head and she collapsed into the carpet of grass. Steady breath in. Letting it out was effortless.

Home. Not hers, she couldn’t remember hers, but someone’s. And that was enough.

She hooked an arm around her waist. It could almost be his, if she wanted, or smaller than his, two children clutching her from each side. She wasn’t alone was the point. She yearned for the most basic comforts, and lying down pressed her tight against solidity. She was connected with something, although the dewy morning earth was harder than grooved wood.

No, the woman wouldn’t let her return.

She was supposed to remember something, she tried to remember anything, the basics, numbers or elements, but all she found was lines of a song dripping off her tongue. They knew, no.

She rolled over but the woman across the lake wanted a song, or a formula for a song, but Rachel wanted a rope to reel her back so that it would all make sense.

Rachel. Ewe. Rachel. No. Rachel, you.

You, the voice said. There was another person and they opened her eyes and touched her face but all she saw was green. Grass, but harder, except harder was wrong, itchier, and it smelled like sweat and metal.

He. So binary, she thought, when a cloud could be whatever it desired. She. He’d come to put her back. The cloud must have opened on them, but that wasn’t right either, because she could see there that there were no clouds, only darkness.

She was crying. She was the one who forced the wet salt down her cheeks that made her skin taunt and hot against the fresh cold. It was still morning?

And then she was upright and he wasn’t letting her go, would never let her go.

“I was free.”

She must have been because sheer terror raked through his eyes. But she would never, could never hurt him, so why did fear her?

She could feel the blood on her hands and the world corrected itself, like an out of sync video, the trees jerking to stretched, closed doors and the warm sunlight sulking back to lamplight through grided windows.

Blood, her own, running in long rivulets. He (the other he) cradled a sheet against the black liquid.

She laughed.

Of course it was the cage. She was the animal, what more was there?

**Author's Note:**

> So an explanation of sorts? I just read The Yellow Wallpaper and wanted to play with the warping of reality and the literal events of the story by the narrator herself. Rachel coming a bit unhinged in captivity was my thinking (although looking at it again it could be later during her canon break with reality too) and her possibly attempting suicide (though also (again) I could see it as torture too). Either way if you've made it this far thanks for bearing with me as I experimented a bit.


End file.
